on how the two of them disagreed on many areas including the iran deal. what was the most striking was the president asserting that he left rex tillerson out of those diplomatic talks last week with north korea and his decision to meet with the north korean dictator kim jong-un. the president said he made that decision on his own and largely left the secretary of state out of those talks. that is why we saw tillerson last week saying comments like, we re a long ways off from negotiations with north korea. kaitlan, we understand there was another departure from the white house. reporter: rex tillerson was not so surprising. we saw that coming for months. we re now learning the president s personal aide, johnny mcintee has been fired and escorted from the white house grounds yesterday. there s not a lot of clarity on what exactly transpired, but we do know it had something to do with his background check that happened that led to him being fired and escorted out of the
he found out about it. i m joined now by our state department reporter alice l labott. elise, he read it on twitter? as shocking for me to say as it is for me to hear it. undersecretary for public diplomacy, steve goldstein, the conduit between secretary tillerson s office and the press says he was not notified by anyone on the president s staff, learned this morning by a presidential tweet about mike pompeo. listen, it is possible that secretary tillerson did get a call from someone kind of giving him a heads up. he might have had an inkling that something was going on, but he was not officially notified by anyone in the administration and learned this morning of his firing. now, we know secretary tillerson came back about a half a day early from a week-long trip to
africa. his aide said he s been out two weeks. his father passed away about a week ago and then went on this long trip to africa. with all the news with north korea, we ve been reporting on this crisis of tariffs with allies. the secretary felt he had a full schedule. did most of the things he needed to do in africa and came back early. that launched a lot of suspicion that maybe he knew something was out. several aides i ve talked to this morning insist he was not notified by the white house that he lost his job. not notified. possible he learned about it on twitter, although, as you say, perhaps he got word of it as early as friday that something was up as he was brought home earlier than expected from his overseas trip. elise, thanks very much. let s go to kaitlan collins at the white house. reporter: a lot of stunning comments from the president just there on the south lawn. speaking about rex tillerson and his departure, the president repeatedly said he was a good guy but focu